Social media has increasingly enabled “fake news” to circulate widely, most notably during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign. Although it likely did not change the outcome of the election, false news threatens the democratic goal of a well-informed electorate. To combat the harmful effects of this misinformation, Facebook began adding “disputed” tags to articles in users’ news feeds that had been debunked by third-party fact-checking organizations in December 2016. (The company has since switched to providing fact-checks in a “related articles” format underneath suspect stories.) In April 2017 and May 2018, Facebook also promoted tips for spotting false news at the top of users’ feeds.
In our new article in Political Behavior, we investigate whether these and other types of misinformation interventions reduce belief in false stories on social media. CONT.
Katherine Clayton, Spencer Blair, et al, Political Behavior